Dee Parsons of Wartburg Watch: The Personification of Everything Wrong with Church
When Paul’s Passing Thoughts .com was started in 2009, the goal was to find out why church turned on me with a vengeance despite my best efforts. Second to that was the question, “What now, where does one go from the point of diagnosing the problem?” You have to properly diagnose the problem before you can fix it.
This article will not wear you out with points leading up to a final conclusion; I will begin by stating what I have found. Church produces the fruit of its ideology. What is wrong with church? Answer: church is what’s wrong with church. Christ’s mandate to his followers was never intended to look anything like church. The solution is to depart from church and pursue Christ’s mandate to His followers. You can’t fix church. There is nothing there that is salvageable.
Let me back up a tad because this post is not the least bit personal, but seeks to sharpen the objectives of TANC Ministries. This is some information that I have not shared before. PPT was primarily a blog for the express purpose of sharing my research. My focus was research. I had to know why—how could dozens of pastors stand by and watch Clearcreek Chapel do to my family what they did?
Clearly, obviously, from a literal interpretive standpoint in regard to the Bible, what they were doing was dead wrong and unbiblical. During the episode, I was even under the counsel of a church that was part of the same fellowship of churches that Clearcreek Chapel belongs to. The pastor, the late Rick Wilson, was a former associate pastor at CCC. The present pastor of the church, Paul Craig, was an elder at the time and according to Wilson found the situation, “unsettling.” Grace Covenant (Beavercreek, Ohio) was obviously stuck in the middle, and was also the recipient of a significant exodus of people from CCC at the time. Though I was clearly under church discipline at CCC, I was allowed to attend Grace Covenant on a regular basis. I even thought about applying for membership which would have forced the Grace Covenant elders into making a judgment regarding the veracity of CCC discipline. I should have; watching that play out would have been priceless.
Eventually, Wilson instructed me to go back and play along in order to get my wife back, but I had already tried that for four months. During that time, I was subjected to cult-like break sessions conducted by CCC elder and Psychiatrist Dr. Devon Berry. The CCC elders knew that I had overcome serious depression in the past, and it was obvious they thought they could use Berry and the circumstances they were bringing to bear in my life to drive me into debilitating despair. It was very apparent to me at the time: that is what they were trying to do.
I want to stop right here and thank God publically for something right now—I want to give Him the glory. At the time, I was working out of town and laid in bed at night before going to work the next day…in perfect peace. My favorite time of the day during that time period was bedtime. Why? I laid there in the quiet darkness, not really thinking about anything except how peaceful it was. I was doing nothing but laying there soaking up the peacefulness. Do I have any theories regarding this experience? One: I had begun a long journey in search for the truth. God is with one on such journeys. That’s my best shot at answering that question. By all reasoning, I should have been a basket case.
Let’s now pause here for some simple clarification. It all boiled down to two things:
AUTHORITY, and how I interpreted reality versus how they interpreted reality.
I have discovered something in my research—research enables you to come to a point more and more where you can explain complex problems in simple terms. In the 2500 + articles I have written on Reformed ideology, you can see the focus move from the what to the why. My first book articulated the what and how it contradicted a grammatical interpretation of reality, though I didn’t understand the latter dynamic. My second book articulated the contemporary history of the Neo-Calvinism movement and added some more data about grammatical contradictions.
My third book and subsequent booklets articulate the grammatical contradictions in regard to soteriology. They also describe the dynamics between the Old Calvinism/New Calvinism question and how the interpretation of reality drives that debate.
Including time spent prior to PPT, eight years later, I can now put all of this in simple terms. It boils down to AUTHORITY vested in the interpretation of reality.
And, the established credential thereof known as “orthodoxy.” What is the premise of orthodoxy? Nothing more or less than the claims of men that people choose to believe. You can put any number of things in place of “naked” in regard to the following question posed by God, “Who told you that you are_____?” Be very, very, very wary of what men say God told you. And that’s orthodoxy. And the place we go to get certified in orthodoxy is called “seminary.” In case you haven’t noticed, God isn’t the dean or an adjunct professor in any of these schools.
Here is something else that should be evident: you, and only you alone will answer to God. Therefore, pick your orthodoxy well. There are no attorneys in God’s court save Christ, “hear ye Him.” “God has spoken to us in these last days through His Son”, not a horde of academics.
So, what do we have in the recent dust-up between PPT and Wartburg Watch? Be advised, I am not going to rehash all of the gory details. Dee Parsons is right and I am wrong because she has college degrees, and holds to orthodoxy. Paul Dohse does not have college degrees, and does not hold to orthodoxy. Paul Dohse holds to a grammatical interpretation of realty, and therefore asks, “How can those who proclaim themselves ‘wicked’ lay claim to salvation?”
Be sure of this: NOTHING has changed since Christ ministered on earth. The primary pushback against Christ was clearly the orthodoxy of the day. Christ deliberately avoided the lauded academia of that day. I just don’t know what is more obvious. In addition, he had to personally reeducate the apostle Paul who was the only religious academic that He used for foundational purposes.
I am weary of documenting the steroidal cognitive dissonance that takes place over at Wartburg and their e-church hosted by the Barney Fife of pastors, Wade Burleson. Regardless of his credentials, from a standpoint of interpreting reality grammatically, his theological snafus are just plain embarrassing. For example, you can’t make the point that a biblical author was teaching something based on the analysis of a word that didn’t exist in the first century. This all takes place in the face of common sense for the same reason I experienced what I experienced at CCC:
AUTHORITY vested in a particular interpretation of reality.
Because one is credentialed in knowing how to lead those who cannot know reality, one should have authority over you for your own good and the common good of people in general.
In varying degrees, CHURCH, established in the 4th century by St. Augustine et al, is the expression of this primary root, and the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Chaos and drama will continue in the church with no solution in sight because of its foundational presuppositions concerning the interpretation of reality and the authority vested in its epistemology.
This ministry’s series on the Heidelberg Disputation focuses on the following fact: at issue with the Reformation was a debate about the interpretation of reality. Of course that spoke to how the Bible is interpreted, but the issue started with how reality itself is to be interpreted. Let me give you the thumbnail:
Words don’t necessarily mean things.
By and large, there are two kinds of Protestants roaming about, Calvinists and functioning Calvinists. Susan and I often have conversations with people who hate Calvinism, but verbally espouse Calvinism unawares constantly. We don’t even address the particulars anymore because we know a complete reeducation is needed. This is what we are attempting to do with the HD series. This series reexamines the roots of the poisonous tree.
This is why Dee Parsons, in the recent dust-up, insinuated that I am mentally ill. What is the definition of a person who does not properly perceive reality? Hence, the CCC elders involved a Psychiatrist in my situation because they honestly believe I am mentally ill because I interpret reality grammatically. Reformed scholars such as Geerhardus Vos have stated such openly. Pastor Russ Kennedy told me I was “mad” and begged me to allow them to “shepherd” me. I believe the guy honestly meant well and still does. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
By the way, I am not talking about grammatical interpretation that leads to a redemptive outcome. I am talking about the interpretation of reality beginning with exegetical presuppositions in the purest sense. I realize Reformed scholars interpret a verse literally when it can serve a redemptive historical outcome…
…that doesn’t make you a proponent of interpreting reality grammatically.
One of the accusations that flowed from the recent dust-up was that TANC Ministries is merely developing its own orthodoxy. Not so. Orthodoxy fundamentally interprets reality according to Martin Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation which was expanded upon by John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Seminary degrees guarantee that individuals will not do independent research that will reveal the real tenants of orthodoxy:
- It is a metaphysical redemptive narrative that interprets all reality through a dualism of good and evil.
- It demands the fusion of faith and force for the common good of mankind.
- It is predicated on spiritual caste that adds additional mediators between God and man other than Christ.
- All of reality progresses as predetermined by manifestations of good completely outside of man.
Dee Parsons’ response to me that “I don’t believe what you say I believe” is most likely due to her ignorance regarding the true sum and substance of the same Reformed orthodoxy that she promotes. Perhaps. While claiming to be an advocate for the spiritually abused, she picks and chooses from orthodoxy what she wants to acknowledge.
The Westminster Confession is just wonderful, but its call to control the free press and execute those who are heterodox is due to the authors being “men of the time.” Of course, their politics and ethics had nothing to do with their ideology. Perish the thought, and no, American Jurisprudence isn’t the only difference between Calvin’s Geneva and the present-day church. It’s absurd to think Dee Parsons would actually have you committed to a mental institution because she thinks you are mentally ill. It’s absurd to think Mark Driscoll would really put you in a wood chipper just because he said that’s what ought to be done. It’s absurd to think James MacDonald would catapult you into the next county, and to your certain death just because he said he wishes he could.
Church is a place where professional clergy interpret reality in a completely different way than most parishioners. Congregants follow the dictates of church leaders while being clueless in regard to their interpretation of reality. They are given elements to follow while being totally unaware as to what those elements are based on. Hence, chaos and confusion reign. Duggar-like drama is paraded before the world constantly like an out-of-control stampede of rats. Yet, that isn’t the madness; the madness is suggesting that we rethink how church is done. After all, Catholicism and Protestantism have had only 1500 + years to get it right. Not only that, the Neo-Calvinist movement has been in total control of the church for at least ten years. Growing steadily since its conceptual resurgence in 1970, discernment/spiritual abuse blogs exploded in 2009 when the movement shifted into 4th gear. Starting in 2008, a historical phenomenon of mediation organizations to keep churches out of court exploded onto the scene as well.
With all of this considered, I think I have heard the best assessment of Wartburg Watch yet:
Subconsciously or consciously, Dee uses her blog as a means to leverage her desire for a seat at the American church’s authoritarian table. Period. Whether this was an initial objective of her blog or merely a pitfall of unforeseen success, who knows? But the reality is obvious:
Dee creates better soldiers, not better souls. And the irony is thus that the “victims” who frequent her site often become the very image of that which they initially despised: manipulative self-appointed God-proxies who claim that the only legitimate doctrinal discussions are with those whom already concede their reformed hermeneutic (Muff Potter, anyone?).
My point is that the cognitive dissonance, the categorical rejection of reason as a yard stick for measuring reality (the efficacy of existence), makes contending with her an almost perfect waste of time.
So what’s the solution? I believe the solution is an utter rejection of orthodoxy and church as we know it. The immense ramifications of that is not the issue—truth is the issue. The church has had its chance to make a case for hope, and has not measured up.
I believe the task ahead is daunting, but will supply a freedom and joy beyond our wildest imaginations. It is a call for Christians to submit themselves to the one mediator Jesus Christ. It is a call for Christians to stop listening to men, and “hear ye Him.” Orthodoxy has NO authority, ALL authority has been given to Christ and no one else.
Past this, God’s people must gather together for mutual encouragement and edification in the ways prescribed by the Bible and not the traditions of men.
When is the misery and suffering produced by orthodoxy enough to make us question everything?
That time is well past.
paul
Deb and Dee of Wartburg Watch .com: Gossip, Not Gospel; Hobby, Not Hope
There is a huge problem with the Christian blogosphere; it is very comfortable with hopelessness. In fact, hopelessness has become a hobby. The real world simply can’t function without solutions, but the Christian e-world seems to be exempt from that reality.
I started this blog when most blogs that address trends in Neo-Calvinism started, circa 2009. The goal was to find answers and an eventual solution to the New Calvinist movement that continues to turn the church upside down. Perhaps my solution-oriented bent comes from my entrepreneurial background; without solutions—you don’t make payroll. I never had to face any of my employees and say, “I can’t pay you this week” because the possibility was too terrifying. Trust me, it was all about solutions for many years.
The problem is simple: the recent and ongoing tsunami of spiritual abuse is due to a false gospel which shouldn’t surprise us. That was my first goal; to find the “why.” Then I found the solution.
What is more obvious than the fact that the institutional church which some call, “the evangelical industrial complex of celebrity pastors” makes the ongoing abuse possible? What is more obvious than the fact that institutions cannot function without money? Take ABWE of the missionary kids infamy. GARB churches could have brought ABWE to its knees inside of a week; yet, even in light of unspeakable atrocities against children, not one congregation pulled support. Hence, the situation dragged on and on for roughly twenty years with little or no justice brought to bear. Why? Where are the missionary kids today? Does anybody even remember them? Oh, I forgot, their situation isn’t trending right now; that would be the latest drama everyone is feeding on: Jordan Root and Matt Chandler’s Village Church.
The discernment blogosphere could stop spiritual abuse dead in its tracks. We are talking about huge numbers and people who have immense influence. Why would you continue to give any credence whatsoever to an institution that makes abuse possible? Churches are either directly involved in abuse, or turn a blind eye to it. Pastors who dwell in the institutional church could indeed put a stop to it as well. For example, a handful of IFB pastors could have stopped the Jack Hyles cartel from wreaking havoc on innocent lives, but they didn’t. Why?
Obviously, it’s a preservation issue of some sort at the expense of innocents who are attending church and trying to do what’s right. Instead, they fall prey to tyranny and pedophiles. There is a reason why the Protestant church now bears the same fruit of the Catholic Church while both continue to thrive. How can this be?
Let’s pause for clarification of points:
- The Protestant/Catholic/evangelical industrial complex of celebrity pastors is predicated on a false gospel, specifically, the false gospel of progressive justification. Protestants and Catholics merely disagree on man’s role in the progression. False gospels bear bad fruit—this should be evident.
- Catholic/Protestant hierarchies both claim God’s authority on earth to oversee the progression of salvation. The Catholics are more upfront about the idea, Protestants less so; nevertheless, this ministry has a cache of quotations from leading evangelicals that make the same claim. And they get that directly from Calvin and Luther.
- Participants of the evangelical industrial complex of celebrity pastors knowingly profess progressive justification, or unwittingly function by it.
- Progressive justification calls for an institution vested with God’s authority to oversee salvation. We hear all of the time that formal church membership is synonymous with being in the “body of Christ.”
- Progressive justification, theologically, allows for any and every kind of sin under the auspices of authority. We simply must not question God’s anointed who “stand in the gap” and “stand in our stead” before God. Our role is “humble submission” before God. If those who stand in the stead have wronged us—they will answer to God, not us. Our role is to “forgive the way we have been forgiven.”
Break point: most discernment blogs are pundits of this system. Their only hope is in the system itself. This is why they refuse to associate ideology with behavior. Regardless of what’s going on in the “church,” the goal is to somehow fix the church. Since 2009, they continue to whine, cry, and beg the institutional church to behave itself. They gather together, moaning and licking each other’s wounds, crying out to the institutional church as god rather than the Prince of Peace. Really, it’s pathetic.
The paramount example of this sad scene is Deb and Dee’s Wartburg Watch .com. In their attempt to save the institutional church, they have become a celebrity subculture that mediates between the hierarchy and Churchianity’s sheeple herd. They are also a model for most of the other discernment blogs.
Listen, when the focus of salvation is a system, people will cling to that system at all cost. It is NEVER the ideological foundations of the system; it is ALWAYS a few bad apples that are to blame. If you suggest that it is the system itself that is the problem, you better go to that conversation in full riot gear.
And yesterday was a good example. It’s an amazing scene. In the same way that celebrity pastors get a pass from their followers, Deb and Dee not only get a pass for their illogical ways and steroidal hypocrisy, but also, as I found out yesterday, a vibrant defense from their faithful followers. Dee, and probably Deb as well, stood by while I apparently got what was coming to me. And cursory observations of their comment streams reveal that they are selective in regard to who receives this verbal abuse.
There is no room here by any means to document the full brunt of their ideological disconnects and hypocrisy, but I will touch on the basics. Let me start with explaining their intolerance of me regardless of the following: the price I paid for asking New Calvinists too many questions rates near the top of the abuse scale, so why did Deb and Dee stand by while I received my verbal beating which included blatant false accusations and baseless name calling? Because like black conservatives who are not black because they are conservatives, I am not a fellow victim because I offer an articulation of the problem and a solution.
Besides the fact that Deb and Dee are not victims of the institutional church, an articulation of the abuse problem and a solution threatens their hobby; ie., gossip mongering. For years, they have held an endless recycling of trending drama in the institutional church with spotlighted victims coming and going. They have their own Top 40 hits of the trending victims that eventually drop down to number 200 or lower. The discussion held on their blog is the musical hit of the week until people get tired of it and wait at the doors of their Wartburg castle with bated breath for whatever is trending next.
But here is the bottom line: Karen Hinkley will not find justice any more than the missionary kids, and that’s NOT ok with me. Karen Hinkley is at the top of the chart right now, and the missionary kids are not even on the chart. Deb and Dee are comfortable with that because trending victims come and go feeding their hobby and celebrity status as hopeless gossip peddlers. Their gargantuan pooling of opinions has not solved anything and has actually enabled the institutional church to continue in tyranny and abuse. They are facilitators—not advocates. They only have talk and have no solutions. In other words, they offer no hope.
Let’s put feet on this a little more. Deb and Dee see no real power in the truth or a connection between ideology and behavior. The latter has been my primary problem with them for several months. In a venture to keep people connected with the institutional church in some way, shape, or form, they offer an e-church hosted by none other than Wade Burleson who is a consummate Neo-Calvinist.
Let that sink in a little. While supposedly taking up the cause of those abused by the New Calvinists, they endorse a New Calvinist, and make it a point to expose others to his teachings.
Really? Do I really have to expound on this further? Look, I could cite the lame excuse they present for doing this on their blog, but I can’t really muster up a mental incentive to do so. This comfort with metaphysical contradictions is post-modernesque in the extreme.
Now, regardless of the fact that I rarely, actually, VERY rarely visit other blogs, and the subsequent accusation by Dee’s minions yesterday that I am a “low grade troll,” I was beckoned to Wartburg yesterday in regard to a statement that she made which leads me to the next point. Since the obvious must be discussed in our day, it stands to reason that the obvious must also have need of being articulated. This speaks to the other problem I have with Wartburg: they do not see truth as efficacious to healing.
Let me be clear and make a statement that I fully intend to stand by: Deb and Dee believe a false gospel. How do I know this? Dee said so. The statement that was brought to my attention follows:
Remember, we are all positionally holy but we are all functional sinners.
This is clearly a false gospel that denies the new birth. In fact, it is a return to the same authentic Protestant gospel that New Calvinism is predicated on. Deb and Dee cannot help people victimized by New Calvinism because they are functioning New Calvinists and that’s exactly why they are hooked up with Wade Burleson which should be more than obvious, but anyway, it is what it is.
Sigh. Ok, let’s start with the fact that the biblical definition of a “sinner” is someone who is unregenerate. Really? Do I have to explain this? Do I have to point out that Dee called “believers” functioning unregenerates? Are evangelicals that far gone? This is the exact same gospel that John Piper et al hold to. He states it plainly all of the time: Christians still need ongoing salvation that can only be found in the institutional church. Furthermore, that also comes directly from Calvin and Luther both in no uncertain terms. Deb and Dee, as well as many of their minions, are well aware of this ministry’s numerous citations that establish this as fact, but…
…they simply don’t care about the truth nor do they see it as relevant, except for the fact that it threatens their hobby and celebrity status. Clearly, their problem with John Piper is primarily his tweets, not his gospel, and they have as much said so in the past. Why? Because they believe the same false gospel.
Christians, if they are really Christians, are not merely “positionally” righteous, they are in fact righteous beings because they have been literally born again of God. In the gospel according to Deb and Dee, there is no understanding of sin in regard to justification and sin under grace. UNDER LAW (the biblical definition of a lost person) and UNDER GRACE (the biblical definition of a saved person) are not separate—“Christians” remain under law and under grace is merely a covering supplied by a perpetual imputation of Christ’s righteousness. This is the New Calvinist false gospel that Deb and Dee buy into while claiming to be champions for those abused by the “Calvinistas.” It’s otherworldly ironic.
So in the final analysis, the Wartburg Watch offers no one hope—victims are only fodder for their hobby, regardless of their motives, and they offer no true good news, but rather replace the gospel with gossip.
paul
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